May 7 ~ Romans 2:17-24
If you’re brought up Jewish, don’t assume that you can lean back in the arms of your religion and take it easy, feeling smug because you’re an insider to God’s revelation, a connoisseur of the best things of God, informed on the latest doctrines! I have a special word of caution for you who are sure that you have it all together yourselves and, because you know God’s revealed Word inside and out, feel qualified to guide others through their blind alleys and dark nights and confused emotions to God. While you are guiding others, who is going to guide you? I’m quite serious. While preaching “Don’t steal!” are you going to rob people blind? Who would suspect you? The same with adultery. The same with idolatry. You can get by with almost anything if you front it with eloquent talk about God and his law. The line from Scripture, “It’s because of you Jews that the outsiders are down on God,” shows it’s an old problem that isn’t going to go away.
Scripture quotations from The Message. © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved.
This morning, my husband and I purchased mulch and flowering plants to spruce up our house and yard. Each spring, we fill four hanging baskets with colorful flowers and trailing vines to place on our back porch. My “gardening” skills extend about as far as filling a pot or bucket with potting soil and poking in some plants - with a quick prayer that I didn’t kill them in the process! As I put Sunsatia Lemon, ornamental sweet potato vines, and red petunias into the four hanging baskets, I laughed to myself as I hurried to get done. I enjoy looking at beautiful plants and flowers… but “gardening” is just not my cup of tea. I could almost hear my grandmother clucking over my shoulder. She loved “digging in the dirt,” and she would have been as frustrated with my impatience as I was the task at hand.
If any of my little ones want to learn to “garden,” I am not the person to teach them. Just because my grandmother was an extraordinary gardener doesn’t ensure that I am one also… or that I could guide someone else to become proficient in this area. On the other hand, my grandmother was also an excellent seamstress, and she did teach me how to sew. Over the last 40 years, I have spent countless hours reading about sewing, studying others’ sewing techniques, talking with fellow seamstresses and sharing their secrets… and putting what I learned into practice. Even though I feel my skills are fairly accomplished, I know I still have a lot to learn… and with each garment, I seem to discover something new - and hone my craft in the process.
In this passage from Romans, the Apostle Paul is telling us that we cannot ride the coat-tails of our ancestors when it comes to our faith… and just because we have invited Jesus to be LORD of our life and forgive our sins – just because we are Christians – does not mean that we are “livin’ on Easy Street”! We can’t sit back and tell everyone else how to live and do as we please because we are children of God. That would be like me trying to tell someone else how to grow flowers and vegetables because my grandmother was such a good gardener!
Just as the last line of this passage indicates, a lot of people are “down on Christianity” because of the way so many Christians act! Too many Christians nitpick and hone in on one particular action or group - and persecute and pester them half to death in the name of Jesus… all the while making Christians as a whole appear to be unkind, unmerciful, and downright ridiculous in many instances. Who wants to be a Christian if this is what it entails?! This is why so many people say, “I’d come to church, but the place is full of hypocrites!” If the hypocrites stopped coming, the sanctuaries would be virtually empty on Sunday mornings! And this is really a sad commentary on our faith!
So what are we to do? I go back to the sewing reference I made earlier. We study, we pray, we fellowship with other believers… we “hone our skills” as Christians… and we put them into daily practice! We speak from the heart – and from experience… not from the lore and lineage of our forefathers. We become “the real deal” for Jesus… we model His teachings for others… we show love, forgiveness, grace, mercy, and compassion… and we tell everyone the Good News about how they can be saved by the blood of the cross and live for Him every day for themselves.
I heard an evangelist say recently that he no longer shares with others about his background and the horrible things that God rescued him from… “because I’m too busy telling people how GOOD God is to me now!” Too many of us are living in the past… and claiming faith in Jesus Christ based on others’ relationship with Him instead of our own. It’s time to develop a relationship with Jesus that is yours… personal and pertinent…one that you can genuinely share with others because you know that you know that you KNOW what you are talking about! Do you have that level of intimacy with Jesus? Do you know Him that well? Isn’t it time you did?
©2013 Debbie Robus
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